Vedin, Lars-Göran

Abstract [en]

Since 1994 the curriculum for technology education in Sweden aimed at teaching technology from five perspectives: a historical and international perspective; an interactional perspective taking into account the interaction between man, technology and nature; a functional perspective taking into account the ability of technology for storage, transportation, transformation and control; a perspective regarding infra-systemic aspects between components and a system a perspective of making practical constructions and achieving solutions to different technological problems. Since the beginning of the year 2003 a perspective of communication has been tentatively added to these perspectives, as we introduced an aspect of design into our courses at Göteborg University. We thus analyze and apply these six perspectives when we teach design and technology. We regard design as a product and as a process in our course on technology and design. Designing is not only applicable to materialistic products but in an increasing amount to products in the virtual cyber world, which is, to a certain extend, becoming increasingly more integrated with our real life world.